Grammy nominated singer and music executive, Abisagboola Oluseun Yeezuz known as Bankulli, has slammed a celebrity show promoter, Paulo Okoye over his remarks about Afrobeat.
Paulo Okoye had while lamenting the pricing of Afrobeat stars, said “AfroBeat Is Dead Or Coma 2026. We need to ask ourselves one honest question.
“Is Afrobeats slowing down, or are we creating a problem for ourselves? Artist fees have gone so high that many promoters no fit book them again. Even big companies and corporate brands are beginning to struggle with these prices,” Okoye wrote on Instagram.
Reacting to the post, Bankulli in a lengthy Instagram post on Wednesday, stated that Okoye’s statement is “faulty”.
While alleging that Okoye made the statement due to his inability to afford top artistes, Bankulli noted “Nothing is dying as far as we know, they are all buying new cars, building and buying new houses up and down.”
Sharing videos of some of the shows he did in the last two months to support his response to Okoye’s statement, Bankulli said “I saw a post on pauloo2104 page AFROBEAT IS DEAD OR COMA 2026. In my opinion such a statement is FAULTY.
“All clips above happened in the last two months. I do business under AFROBEATS GENRE but still I will share my little wisdom. None of both Genre is dead or in Coma as you think. They are doing good, what we may be experiencing is growth in sound shuffling, which is fine but to put out a statement like that to me is bad.
“Is it because some promoters are finding it hard to book some top performing artiste is the reason to make that statement? Well if you must know there has been a paradigm shift. It’s okay for you to be obsessed with booking some other expensive artistes and can’t do so now for whatever reasons, but to equate to that statement is not good my brother.
“Times have changed in the pricing regime of Nigerian artistes. If some have over priced themselves, it’s fine there are others very good with solid fanbase to fill the good space,” Bankulli wrote.
